The Ministry and the Past: German Diplomacy in the Third Reich and the Federal Republic (German: Das Amt und die Vergangenheit: Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik) is an 880-page report released by the German Foreign Office and published by Karl Blessing Verlag on October 28, 2010. The report establishes that the Foreign Office was deeply involved in the Holocaust.[1]
The report was commissioned by former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in 2005[2] and prepared for German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. The report's findings were to be incorporated into training for future German diplomats.
The report has been published commercially and went on sale before it had been delivered to Westerwelle.[3] It was available for €34.95 at some exchanges.[4] As of March 2012, over 75,000 copies of the report had been sold, an unusually high number for a history book that occupies such a specialized niche.[5] Some as such TIME magazine's Berlin correspondent have questioned why it took the German government 65 years to release this report and suggested that there was a widespread coverup of the diplomats' role in the "Final Solution."[6]
References
edit- ^ "Germany's Nazi diplomats: The machine's accomplices". The Economist. 28 October 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
- ^ 'Each Ministry Must Examine Its Own Nazi Past', Der Spiegel. October 28, 2010. Retrieved October 28, 2010
- ^ James Meikle (October 25, 2010). "Truth about German diplomats' collusion in Holocaust is revealed". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2013-09-17. Retrieved 2017-03-29.
- ^ Conze, Eckart; Frei, Norbert; Hayes, Peter; Zimmermann, Moshe (2 November 2010). Das Amt und die Vergangenheit: Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik [The Ministry and the Past: German Diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic]. Annette Weinke, Andrea Wiegeshoff (3rd ed.). Karl Blessing Verlag. ISBN 978-3-641-05091-7. OCLC 770555988. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
- ^ Beste, Ralf; Bönisch, Georg (March 6, 2012), "From Dictatorship to Democracy. The Role Ex-Nazis Played in Early West Germany. Part 2: The Grandchildren Want to Know", Spiegel Online, Hamburg: Spiegel Verlag, archived from the original on 2016-03-21
- ^ Were German Diplomats Complicit in the Holocaust?, Tristana More. TIME magazine. October 27, 2010. Retrieved October 28, 2010